I am a member of several radio clubs and
organizations. Most of my club activity is with the Independent Radio Club WA6IRC. We are
a family oriented club in Los Angeles. We have a repeater system in the San Fernando
Valley, CA on Contractors Point (224.480- PL 110.9 & 445.340- PL 103.5). Our repeater
system is linked through Blueridge into Las Vegas. Our club is very active on Field Day. This
year we did Field Day at El Capitan State beach. We have picnics, campouts and monthly meetings to socialize,
play with radios and have fun.

2003 Field Day Station of WA6IRC My
daughter Michelle at our club picnic

Steve KG6GIK and Mark KC6HMO on the tower at Blueridge
2006 Christmas Party

The ARRL is the national amateur radio
organization of the United States. They help promote amateur radio, run contests, give
advise, publish a cool magazine, and most importantly represent amateur radio interests
before the regulatory bodies. Without the ARRL there would be no voice in Congress or the
FCC to lobby for amateur radio. Some hams are put off by the politics of the ARRL, bad
mouth them and refuse to join. I feel that every ham should be a member of the
organization. I consider it like hiring a lobbyist for amateur radio and I get a great
magazine out of it! Their web site is a great way to keep up with the news of amateur
radio.

AMSAT is a worldwide group of Amateur Radio
Operators who share an active interest in building, launching and then communicating with
each other through non-commercial Amateur Radio satellites. Since its initial founding,
over 25 years ago, AMSAT has used predominantly volunteer labor and donated resources to
design, construct and, with the added assistance of government and commercial space
agencies, successfully launch, over two dozen Amateur Radio communications satellites into
Earth orbit. I support AMSAT because we will not have amateur satellites without an
organization like AMSAT. I encourage every amateur interested in operating on satellites
to join.